Tidbits about the novel options for Quarter 4: Novel Study- British Literature/Smiley
Lord of the Flies
In the midst of a raging war, a plane evacuating a group of schoolboys from Britain is shot down over a deserted
tropical island. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a conch shell on the beach, and Piggy realizes it could be
used as a horn to summon the other boys. Once assembled, the boys set about electing a leader and devising a way
to be rescued. They choose Ralph as their leader, and Ralph appoints another boy, Jack, to be in charge of the boys
who will hunt food for the entire group.
Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, set off on an expedition to explore the island. When they return, Ralph declares
that they must light a signal fire to attract the attention of passing ships. The boys succeed in igniting some dead
wood by focusing sunlight through the lenses of Piggy’s eyeglasses. However, the boys pay more attention to playing
than to monitoring the fire, and the flames quickly engulf the forest. A large swath of dead wood burns out of control,
and one of the youngest boys in the group disappears, presumably having burned to death.
The Time Machine
A group of men, including the narrator, is listening to the Time Traveller discuss his theory that time is the fourth
dimension. The Time Traveller produces a miniature time machine and makes it disappear into thin air. The next
week, the guests return, to find their host stumble in, looking disheveled and tired. They sit down after dinner, and the
Time Traveller begins his story.
The Time Traveller had finally finished work on his time machine, and it rocketed him into the future. When the
machine stops, in the year 802,701 AD, he finds himself in a paradisiacal world of small humanoid creatures called
Eloi. They are frail and peaceful, and give him fruit to eat. He explores the area, but when he returns he finds that his
time machine is gone. He decides that it has been put inside the pedestal of a nearby statue. He tries to pry it open
but cannot.
Animal Farm
Old Major, a prize-winning boar, gathers the animals of the Manor Farm for a meeting in the big barn. He tells them of
a dream he has had in which all animals live together with no human beings to oppress or control them. He tells the
animals that they must work toward such a paradise and teaches them a song called “Beasts of England,” in which
his dream vision is lyrically described. The animals greet Major’s vision with great enthusiasm. When he dies only
three nights after the meeting, three younger pigs—Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer—formulate his main principles
into a philosophy called Animalism. Late one night, the animals manage to defeat the farmer Mr. Jones in a battle,
running him off the land. They rename the property Animal Farm and dedicate themselves to achieving Major’s
dream. The cart-horse Boxer devotes himself to the cause with particular zeal, committing his great strength to the
prosperity of the farm and adopting as a personal maxim the affirmation “I will work harder.”
Sense and Sensibility
When Mr. Henry Dashwood dies, leaving all his money to his first wife's son John Dashwood, his second wife and her
three daughters are left with no permanent home and very little income. Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters (Elinor,
Marianne, and Margaret) are invited to stay with their distant relations, the Middletons, at Barton Park. Elinor is sad to
leave their home at Norland because she has become closely attached to Edward Ferrars, the brother-in-law of her
half-brother John. However, once at Barton Park, Elinor and Marianne discover many new acquaintances, including
the retired officer and bachelor Colonel Brandon, and the gallant and impetuous John Willoughby, who rescues
Marianne after she twists her ankle running down the hills of Barton in the rain. Willoughby openly and unabashedly
courts Marianne, and together the two flaunt their attachment to one another, until Willoughby suddenly announces
that he must depart for London on business, leaving Marianne lovesick and miserable. Meanwhile, Anne and Lucy
Steele, two recently discovered relations of Lady Middleton's mother, Mrs. Jennings, arrive at Barton Park as guests
of the Middletons. Lucy ingratiates herself to Elinor and informs her that she (Lucy) has been secretly engaged to Mr.
Ferrars for a whole year. Elinor initially assumes that Lucy is referring to Edward's younger brother, Robert, but is
shocked and pained to learn that Lucy is actually referring to her own beloved Edward.
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is a young orphan being raised by Mrs. Reed, her cruel, wealthy aunt. A servant named Bessie provides
Jane with some of the few kindnesses she receives, telling her stories and singing songs to her. One day, as
punishment for fighting with her bullying cousin John Reed, Jane’s aunt imprisons Jane in the red-room, the room in
which Jane’s Uncle Reed died. While locked in, Jane, believing that she sees her uncle’s ghost, screams and faints.
She wakes to find herself in the care of Bessie and the kindly apothecary Mr. Lloyd, who suggests to Mrs. Reed that
Jane be sent away to school. To Jane’s delight, Mrs. Reed concurs.
Pride and Prejudice
The news that a wealthy young gentleman named Charles Bingley has rented the manor of Netherfield Park causes a
great stir in the nearby village of Longbourn, especially in the Bennet household. The Bennets have five unmarried
daughters—from oldest to youngest, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia—and Mrs. Bennet is desperate to see
them all married. After Mr. Bennet pays a social visit to Mr. Bingley, the Bennets attend a ball at which Mr. Bingley is
present. He is taken with Jane and spends much of the evening dancing with her. His close friend, Mr. Darcy, is less
pleased with the evening and haughtily refuses to dance with Elizabeth, which makes everyone view him as arrogant
and obnoxious.
Brave New World
The novel opens in the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Centre, where the Director of the Hatchery and
one of his assistants, Henry Foster, are giving a tour to a group of boys. The boys learn about the Bokanovsky and
Podsnap Processes that allow the Hatchery to produce thousands of nearly identical human embryos. During the
gestation period the embryos travel in bottles along a conveyor belt through a factory like building, and are
conditioned to belong to one of five castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. The Alpha embryos are destined
to become the leaders and thinkers of the World State. Each of the succeeding castes is conditioned to be slightly
less physically and intellectually impressive. The Epsilons, stunted and stupefied by oxygen deprivation and chemical
treatments, are destined to perform menial labor. Lenina Crowne, an employee at the factory, describes to the boys
how she vaccinates embryos destined for tropical climates.
1984
Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in London, in the nation of Oceania. Everywhere Winston
goes, even his own home, the Party watches him through telescreens; everywhere he looks he sees the face of the
Party’s seemingly omniscient leader, a figure known only as Big Brother. The Party controls everything in Oceania,
even the people’s history and language. Currently, the Party is forcing the implementation of an invented language
called Newspeak, which attempts to prevent political rebellion by eliminating all words related to it. Even thinking
rebellious thoughts is illegal. Such though crime is, in fact, the worst of all crimes.
Frankenstein
In a series of letters, Robert Walton, the captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, recounts to his sister back in
England the progress of his dangerous mission. Successful early on, the mission is soon interrupted by seas full of
impassable ice. Trapped, Walton encounters Victor Frankenstein, who has been traveling by dog-drawn sledge
across the ice and is weakened by the cold. Walton takes him aboard ship, helps nurse him back to health, and hears
the fantastic tale of the monster that Frankenstein created.
Gulliver’s Travels
Gulliver’s Travels recounts the story of Lemuel Gulliver, a practical-minded Englishman trained as a surgeon who
takes to the seas when his business fails. In a deadpan first-person narrative that rarely shows any signs of selfreflection or deep emotional response, Gulliver narrates the adventures that befall him on these travels.
Gulliver’s adventure in Lilliput begins when he wakes after his shipwreck to find himself bound by innumerable tiny
threads and addressed by tiny captors who are in awe of him but fiercely protective of their kingdom.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
On their weekly walk, an eminently sensible, trustworthy lawyer named Mr. Utterson listens as his friend Enfield tells
a gruesome tale of assault. The tale describes a sinister figure named Mr. Hyde who tramples a young girl,
disappears into a door on the street, and reemerges to pay off her relatives with a check signed by a respectable
gentleman. Since both Utterson and Enfield disapprove of gossip, they agree to speak no further of the matter. It
happens, however, that one of Utterson’s clients and close friends, Dr. Jekyll, has written a will transferring all of his
property to this same Mr. Hyde. Soon, Utterson begins having dreams in which a faceless figure stalks through a
nightmarish version of London.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Alice sits on a riverbank on a warm summer day, drowsily reading over her sister’s shoulder, when she catches sight
of a White Rabbit in a waistcoat running by her. The White Rabbit pulls out a pocket watch, exclaims that he is late,
and pops down a rabbit hole. Alice follows the White Rabbit down the hole and comes upon a great hallway lined with
doors. She finds a small door that she opens using a key she discovers on a nearby table. Through the door, she
sees a beautiful garden, and Alice begins to cry when she realizes she cannot fit through the door. She finds a bottle
marked “DRINK ME” and downs the contents. She shrinks down to the right size to enter the door but cannot enter
since she has left the key on the tabletop above her head. Alice discovers a cake marked “EAT ME” which causes
her to grow to an inordinately large height. Still unable to enter the garden, Alice begins to cry again, and her giant
tears form a pool at her feet. As she cries, Alice shrinks and falls into the pool of tears. The pool of tears becomes a
sea, and as she treads water she meets a Mouse. The Mouse accompanies Alice to shore, where a number of
animals stand gathered on a bank. After a “Caucus Race,” Alice scares the animals away with tales of her cat, Dinah,
and finds herself alone again.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
In the stately London home of his aunt, Lady Brandon, the well-known artist Basil Hallward meets Dorian Gray.
Dorian is a cultured, wealthy, and impossibly beautiful young man who immediately captures Basil’s artistic
imagination. Dorian sits for several portraits, and Basil often depicts him as an ancient Greek hero or a mythological
figure. When the novel opens, the artist is completing his first portrait of Dorian as he truly is, but, as he admits to his
friend Lord Henry Wotton, the painting disappoints him because it reveals too much of his feeling for his subject. Lord
Henry, a famous wit who enjoys scandalizing his friends by celebrating youth, beauty, and the selfish pursuit of
pleasure, disagrees, claiming that the portrait is Basil’s masterpiece. Dorian arrives at the studio, and Basil reluctantly
introduces him to Lord Henry, who he fears will have a damaging influence on the impressionable, young Dorian.